we know that most of the price we pay for bottled water or other drinks, but also for detergents or miscellaneous consumer products, is due to the cost of their packaging and labels, which are a synthesis of the advertising message (we are not concerned here with the problem of distribution). the amount of this cost tells us that what we are paying for is not so much the contents but their image, because it is different. to this must be added another, specular cost: that of the environmental pollution caused not only by the uncontrolled dispersal of used packages, but also by the processing of raw materials necessary to their manufacture, e.g. wood paste, petroleum, metals and also, in cases where this occurs, by the recycling of used packaging. a further type of pollution, similar to this, also exists but not everybody is fully aware of it: namely the incessant proliferation of new forms to connote goods whose duration ought to be much longer than that of disposable products. in this case, too, the pollution is evident: it is not a paradox to say that the uncontrolled proliferation of the forms that constitute cities ultimately corresponds to a rubbish-dump of perception.